An Enigma wrapped in a mystery (or: that cat's name keeps getting more and more apt)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Update on Enigma the cat, with a big wtf.

I haven’t written about Enigma for a while. Since you ask, he’s doing fine. In fact, he had a near-total change of personality within days, maybe a week, and now he thinks humans are AWESOME. The ones living in this house, anyway. He’s gone all cuddly. He walks around the house meowing for someone to pet him, and if you’re nearby while he’s eating he will keep interrupting his meal to rub all over you. I have photographic evidence of him sitting in my mother’s lap, but I can’t find the port to download the pictures from the stupid camera, so you’ll have to take my word on it for now. Also, we’re taken to calling him “Iggy”.
On top of that my mother suspects he’s found another family as well. He’s been coming in shifts, see. He started coming in the morning and leaving at night, then he came in at night and left in the morning, and it’s not like the weather is pleasant out there. (He had a collar when he was fixed, but it fell off. He does have a microchip, though). I said that it took him long enough to get used to us, he still hates strangers. Besides, it would be creepy if he followed in the footsteps of Handsome* to that extent.
Then he disappeared.
Four days, no sign of him. I was starting to worry that he was possessed by Handsome’s ghost or something. (Okay, I’m kidding about that, but the similarities were really creeping me out).
Then last night, he turned up. In manner weirdly similar to a vivid dream I’d had that morning, at that. I’d been telling the family “he’s going to come back today” several times, which has them really impressed. Anyway, he was a pathetic sight. Thinner, ravenous, dirty (I think he’s never gotten the hang of washing his head) and slightly smelly. No sign of any injury, though. He made a racket because he wanted to play and we wanted to go to bed. He’s acting completely normal, except he’s being weird to Mystery, and visa versa.

I still have no idea what happened (though I do have several half-baked ideas as to what could have happened). Enigmatic cat is still enigmatic. The reason I posted this in IMHO is because I was wondering if you had any plausible ideas.

*Handsome was a black cat with an unrequited crush on Mystery, who we adopted because hey, there’s a cat who keeps coming over to see Mystery. He turned out to A) have been recently abandoned, and B) had also found a family several blocks away on the other side of a busy street, where they called him Gizmo. He disappeared after a few months, probably because of said busy street.

2

Hey. Good name.

3

I just wanted to look at pictures, but I was sorely disappointed. Until I clicked on that link.

Lovely! I have a soft spot for black cats, for some reason, and those are a beautiful pair.

Also: if I ever have a cat, I’m totally naming it Enig-meow.

4

When I next see my father I can ask him about downloading pictures. Then you can get your cat-fix.

5

I’m gonna chime in with my completely unsolicited advice: keep your kitties INSIDE.

There’s a big, bad world out there, and busy streets aren’t even the half of it. Fights with other cats can leave Enigma with nasty abscesses, and packs of roaming dogs love to play “keep away” with outside cats.

We lost one precious cat (Silver) to a bunch of dogs that eviscerated him and left his carcass in the bushes for the neighbors to find.

ALL of our cats have been inside cats ever since.
~VOW

6

My camera has appeared to have deleted all my photos instead of downloading them.

Stupid piece of @#$$%.

7

Got some new pics. They’re not very good, but if this camera has a kids&pets setting I can’t find it.

8

He looks like the sort of cat that would roll over like he wants a belly rub, then suddenly your hand is shredded.

Have Enigma and Mystery sorted out thier relationship, or are they still being weird to each other?

9

I had a cat go missing for a couple of weeks when the babysitter let him out by accident. He showed up in the backyard one day all “Hey, where have you been?” He was skinny and ravenous. We speculated that he had gotten shut in someone’s garage who had gone on vacation. But he never confirmed that.

10

No. Not at all. She tries to avoid him, which he makes difficult. If she’s sitting in my mother’s lap and Enigma comes, she’ll jump off and run away, and then Enigma takes her place. I don’t think he’s even scaring her off on purpose; he just sees, hey, there’s a fortuitously empty lap. He really can’t take a hint that he isn’t wanted.

I am going to call my friend the cat lady tonight. Hopefully she’ll have some advice.